Cybersecurity for the Smart Grid: Challenges and R&D Directions

Modern electric power grid is a complex cyber-physical critical infrastructure that forms the lifeline of our society, its reliable, secure, and resilient operation is of paramount importance to national security and economic well-being. In recent years, there has been growing concerns over the cybersecurity of the power grid, due to both from increasing trend of cyber-attacks and the sophistication of these attacks. For instance, cyber attacks on Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and 2016, and also increasing number attempts to infiltrate into grid infrastructures of many nations underscore the urgency and importance of this issue. This talk first focuses on the technical challenges associated with protecting the grid, and then discusses R&D directions and best practices to achieve cybersecurity. In particular, a holistic cybersecurity framework — encompassing attack deterrence, prevention, detection, mitigation, resilience, and attribution/forensics — is discussed. The concepts of end-to-end-security, defense-in-depth, attack-resiliency, and cybersecurity testbeds are also briefly discussed.

About the Speaker:

Manimaran Govindarasu is currently the Mehl Professor of Computer Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University (ISU). His research experiences include Cyber-Physical System (CPS) security for the smart grid, cyber security, and real-time systems. He has co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed research publications, and has given many invited talks and tutorials at reputed IEEE conferences, and delivered more than dozen industry training sessions, and currently hosts CPS cybersecurity testbed for research and education. He is the Founding Chair of the Cybersecurity Task Force/Working Group within IEEE PES CAMS Subcommittee. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid and IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. His research program is funded by U.S NSF, DHS, and DOE, and PSERC. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

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